Date Night
by ReviewDiaries
Summary: All John wants is one date night that isn't ruined by Sherlock - but Sherlock, as always, has other ideas.


After that truly hideous affair with the Chinese mob moonlighting as circus performers, John does not let Sherlock within a hundred foot radius of any of his dates.  
Anything involving him dating other people has to be planned with all the care of a military attack so as to reduce exposure to Sherlock to the absolute bare minimum. Sometimes that still doesn't help and he's left standing on the doorstep to Baker Street with a cheek still stinging from the slap that his ever helpful flatmate's words have earned him this time.

This time though, John is certain will go better. Contact between the woman opposite (who he is 98% sure is called Hannah) and Sherlock has been kept at zero, and is going to stay that way until the danger period of the first few weeks has been dealt with. A rough study has shown that any woman who meets Sherlock during the time between one and four weeks of dating will invariably lead to disaster, tears, and bodily harm.  
Whilst they are still only on week 2, John is confident that he can keep the two separate, leading to a modicum of normalcy in his date nights – at least for now.  
It also helps that he managed to convince Sherlock he was going out with mates to the pub and not on a date – knowledge of which always sends him into either a frenzy or a fit of the sulks – thus eliminating as much of the risk for disruption as possible.

In fact, John is feeling really rather pleased with himself as he gazes at Hannah over the top of the menu. Rarely do his date nights go quite as smoothly as this one is, and he has a feeling that this might be the night he finally gets –

John's phone vibrates in his pocket. He freezes, watching Hannah carefully out of the corner of his eye to assess whether she heard the noise. She remains oblivious though, chattering about work, or her friend, or maybe her friend at work – John stopped paying attention a little while ago – and he inwardly breathes a sigh of relief.

That doesn't solve the problem of what to do about his phone though. John tries to work out the likelihood of it being Greg or Harry or even Mycroft as opposed to Sherlock demanding that John hand him a pen, and decides the odds are fairly slim to none.

Best to ignore it then. He takes a sip of his wine and smiles at Hannah, trying desperately to piece together what she's talking about before he has to make some sort of contribution to the conversation.

But what if Sherlock is in trouble? Lying in some back alley bleeding to death and texting John instead of calling an ambulance because he is just that much of an idiot?

John's stomach clenches.

No. No he's just being paranoid. Maybe it's the guilt of lying about where he was going. That's probably it, just guilt, and Sherlock just wants a pen. Sherlock always wants a bloody pen.

John lifts his wineglass to have another sip to soothe his nerves and almost spills it in his lap as his phone vibrates again.

Bastard.

"Are you alright John?" Hannah's eyeing the tilted wineglass and half crushed menu and John does his best to smooth his frown into a happy, carefree smile. Given her look of confusion in response he doesn't think he's been very successful.

"Fine, fine! Absolutely fine! Just need to check this – might be the surgery – medical emergency!"

Her confusion deepens into a look of concern and John quickly pulls out his phone, desperate to get this over with and try to put the date back on the right track.

_Your skills at deception are getting worse. – SH_

_Remind me to teach you how to hide your tells before our next case. – SH_

Well it could be worse, just means that Sherlock knows John's on a date. No need to panic and go dashing off to whatever back alley he might have been bleeding out in. No, it's fine, it's manageable, completely controllable –

_Although maybe not, it is always entertaining watching you try to hide your intentions. – SH_

Bloody smug bastard. John shoves his phone back into his pocket and attempts another reassuring smile at Hannah.

"Sorry, you were saying?" She smiles, resumes her monologue from where she left off. John takes another long gulp of wine and attempts to pay attention this time. Somewhere along the line a cat's become involved? Maybe she wasn't talking about work after all?

John's phone buzzes again and he can feel himself clenching up. Feel his attention slipping even further from Hannah and her cat, because if there is one thing he cannot abide, it is not knowing something. And the idea that there is a text, admittedly an inane and ridiculous text from Sherlock, that he hasn't read and doesn't know what it contains, is like having an itch he cannot scratch.

His phone buzzes again. In fact, it is like someone has just thrown itching powder down his trousers.

He nods and smiles when Hannah laughs at a part of her tale/anecdote/entire life story, and takes another long sip of wine. He can do this. It's fine, just ignore it – Sherlock is just trying to disrupt his date because he is the kind of self-centred jerk who –

John's phone buzzes again.

"SosorryaboutthisHannah." John barely scrambles out the sentence before he is pulling out his phone.

_Perhaps I should teach you how to appear interested in your dates when you clearly would much rather be out at a murder scene with me? – SH_

John blusters at his phone. That is absolutely not true. Not even close. As if John would ever prefer a crime scene to a date with a beautiful woman.

_Although perhaps it is your own fault for picking such criminally boring women to spend your time with, she has been talking about her cat for the last twenty minutes after all. – SH_

John blinks at his screen. How could Sherlock possibly know that she's been –  
Oh. No. No no no no no – he wouldn't, he couldn't, that is simply just Not Fair.

John tries to surreptitiously look around the restaurant whilst opening up the last text.

_And if you were hoping to finally 'strike lucky' as you so tactfully put it, it is very obviously not your night. – SH_

John fumes at this, how on earth can he possibly know something like that? Sherlock who cannot even begin to fathom why John would date in the first place. He practically thumps the keys through the back of the phone as he replies.

**What?**

He continues to take furtive looks around the restaurant, trying to spot Sherlock in the dim candlelight, because there is no doubt about it, he must be here. Somewhere. Desperately trying to fulfil his quota of making John want to kill things.

_Have I taught you nothing? Size of the trousers in correspondence to the top, colour of the nail varnish, multiple trips to the ladies room and the way she keeps grabbing hold of her bag to check it's still there – it is that time of the month John, and as a result, not your lucky night. – SH_

John can only assume from the look Hannah is giving him that the keening noise of despair must be coming from him.

_Really John, it's not the end of the world. – SH_

John shuts his eyes and inhales to a count of ten before opening them again, just in time to see his phone light up again.

_She's also quite clearly on the rebound so this little 'relationship' of yours would never have achieved much beyond its current peak. – SH_

John puts his phone down on the table and attempts to salvage the situation with Hannah.

"Sorry about that – flat mate is having a crisis with the, uh, boiler. Just wanted some advice." He attempts a smile and tops up their wine glasses from the bottle on the table. "You were saying before?"

She smiles, a little hesitantly, but it's there nonetheless and John starts to relax a little bit – he can do this, save this, it's all going to be fine.

His phone buzzes again. Hannah appears to be too engrossed in her story to really notice though, so he slides his menu over his phone and slowly clicks on the new message.

_Three years, ended over a truly ridiculous argument about her cats – of which she has five by the way – and she is trying to pretend she hasn't just lost the 'love of her life'. – SH_

John deletes the message and tries to work out where the hell Sherlock is hiding.

_Vegetarian – don't really know why you're wasting your time. – SH_

John debates turning his phone off, or possibly just dropping it in the water jug on the table.

_Daddy issues, you can tell by her heel height. – SH_

John's never managed to smash a phone with his bare hands before and wonders if tonight might be the first. He attempts valiantly to return his attention to Hannah, but no matter how hard he tries, he simply cannot make himself be interested. That probably tells him all he needs to know about the success of this date, but he doesn't want to give Sherlock the satisfaction of being right.

_Refuses to have sex with the lights on, shocking body image problems and lets her cats sleep on the bed – even when she has someone staying over. – SH_

John represses a shudder. It's as though he's sent out some sort of bat signal to Sherlock though because now the texts come thick and fast.

_Coffee drinker – can't stand the taste of tea. Refuses to even keep it in the house. – SH_

_Can't stand violence of any kind – just the sight of a gun is enough to make her faint. – SH_

_Still lives at home with her Mother. – SH_

"What?!" John realises from the sudden deathly quiet, not just at their table but rippling throughout the restaurant that he may have just spoken out loud.

"Sorry – I? Are you alright John?" Hannah is eyeing him warily, finally noticing the phone clenched in his hand as she starts to collect herself, pushing back her chair and pulling on her coat. "I think this evening might have been a mistake."

_Oh good, she's finally noticed you're not interested. – SH_

"And you obviously have something else you'd rather be doing." She stares pointedly at his phone and picks up her bag.

"Hannah, look, I'm sorry. It's my flatmate – it's a bad night, I'm really sorry about this, what can I do to make it up to you?"

She pauses, watching him thoughtfully for a moment. "If you can tell me what I've just been talking about for the last ten minutes, then I will sit down and we can pretend this never happened, and go back to having a lovely date."

"Right! Yes! Absolutely! Great! Thank you! Uh – you were, ah, talking about, your cats?"

In hindsight John does realize he probably deserved the glass of water thrown in his face.

By the time John has finished mopping the water out of his eyes Hannah has gone, and his phone has lit up again.

_Triple homicide. Lestrad wants us now. – SH_

John ignores the text and tries to attract the waiter's attention.

_Will buy you dinner after. – SH_

John shoves a couple of bills on the table to cover the wine – they never even made it to the starter – and starts to pull on his coat.

_I'm much more fun than her anyway. – SH_

John absolutely will not smile. He stands up, patting down as much of shirt as he can reach.

_And I promise not to talk about cats. – SH_

John pushes his chair in and swings round towards the door, only to spot Sherlock tucked into a corner table. He'd like to think he looks at least mildly sheepish, but can't quite convince himself. He does however look incredibly smug.

He stands in front of Sherlock and attempts to glare.

"You are insufferable."

"I was merely trying to save my blogger from a dull evening and an unsatisfactory conclusion."

John rolls his eyes and stands back as Sherlock rises, knotting his scarf into place.

"Besides, why would you want to sit here talking about cats when there are murderer's to catch?"

"A vague sense of normalcy?"

"Normal, John, is for other people. Normal is for the boring masses. Normal, is not us."

No, he supposed it wasn't. He follows Sherlock out into the night, collar turned up against the wind, with the promise of a triple homicide, and Chinese later to keep him warm.


End file.
